Category Archives: music

Comedy Is Easy, Lyrics Are Hard

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UPDATE: As to not make people go insane looking for the answers to the lyrics that have not been identified, I thought I would add the answers, but encoded by ROT13.

This will do a couple things — first, give you a hint as to what the unidentified song is, and second, give you the ability to decode the song/artist if you really want to know what it is.

There’s a ROT13 decoder at the top right of my blog now.

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samuraifrog posted a boatload of lyrics to guess, and I got one.

I was unable to get any on the quiz of becca’s (who answered an impossible number of the questions on le frog’s quiz).

So, I thought I would give this a whirl.

The Rules
Put your iTunes (or whatever) on random. Post lyrics from the first songs that play. Post it on your blog & let everyone guess the song & artist. Looking the lyrics up on any search engine is cheating!

1) Gur Cvkvrf – Avzebq’f Fba
One night upon my motorcycle through the desert sped
And smashed my body so that all my friends thought I was dead
My sister held me close and whispered to my bleeding head
“You are the son of a mother fucker”

2) Ybhqba Jnvajevtug VVV – Crbcyr Va Ybir
Movie stars smooching in an old movie
Kid turns away, and says it’s yucky
The kid knows something that the grownups don’t
When the kid grows up after that, the kid won’t


3) Donovan – There Is A Mountain (johnny yen)
Caterpillar sheds his skin
To find the butterfly within

4) Ebola Uvgpupbpx – Genzf Bs Byq Ybaqba
On a clear night you can see
Where the rails used to be
Oh it seems like ancient myth
They once ran to Hammersmith

5) Pnegre Snzvyl – Lbh Qravrq Lbhe Ybir
That was the day when you went away
You broke my heart in the month of May
That little ring I gave to you
Was to show you dear my love was true


6) Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah (samuraifrog)
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?

7) Jnyxre Oebguref – Avgr Syvtugf
There’s no hold
The moving has come through
The danger brushing you
Turns its face into the heat and runs the tunnels
It’s so cold
The dark dug up by dogs
The stitches torn and broke
The raw meat fist you choke
Has hit the bloodlite


8) The Who – Christmas (samuraifrog)
Did you ever see the faces
Of the children, they get so excited.
Waking up on Christmas morning
Hours before the winter sun’s ignited.


9) The Ramones – Rock ‘N Roll High School (samuraifrog)
I just wanna have some kicks
I just wanna get some chicks


10) The Human League – Don’t You Want Me (tim)
I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
That much is true

11) Phegvf Znlsvryq – V Cyna Gb Fgnl N Oryvrire
I met a friend of mine the other day
He said he couldn’t stay
Because the world was going to end
At the end of May
Well, May done passed
And everbody still sittin’ here on their ass
With some talk
They’re now waiting for The Judgment Day


12) George Jones – The Race Is On (mob)
I feel tears wellin’ up cold and deep inside
Like my heart’s sprung a big break
And the stab of loneliness, sharp and painful
That I may never shake
You might say that I was taking it hard
When she wrote me off with a call
But don’t you wager that I’ll hide in sorrow
When I may break right down and bawl

13) Fynqr – Bar Jnl Ubgry
They asked me to sleep on the floor
The people were running galore
They asked for the time to make a number of changes and I let them


14) They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse In Your Soul (samuraifrog)
There’s a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I’d be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts

15) Zbzhf – Nqnz Terra
If my name were Howard
I’d dress up in a cumberbund and fez
If my name were Howard
I’d puff all night on funny cigarettes

If my name were Howard
I’d be terrified of getting sucked buck naked down the drain
Into a damp, dark world of flesh-eating spiders
If my name were Howard
I’d have thought of South Park and be rich as Midas

16) Gur Fuvaf – Erq Enoovgf
And I can’t go into this no more,
It puts too many thorns on my mind,
And the necessary balloon lies a corpse on the floor,
We’ve pissed on far too many sprites,
And they’re all standing up for their rights.


17) The Trashmen – Surfin’ Bird (samuraifrog)
Don’t you know about the bird?
Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word


18) Rick James – Superfreak (tim)
She’s a very kinky girl
The kind you don’t take home to mother

19) Qr Yn Fbhy – Rlr Xabj
May I cut this dance to introduce myself as
The chosen one to speak
Let me lay my hand across yours
And aim a kiss upon your cheek
The name’s Plug Two
And from the soul I bring you
The daisy of your choice
May it be filled with the pleasure principle
In circumference to my voice


20) Harry Belafonte – Jamaica Farewell (samuraifrog)
But I’m sad to say I’m on my way
Won’t be back for many a day
My heart is down, my head is turning around
I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town

Strange, Avant-Garde Gifts From My Father

My dad doesn’t like rock music for the most part. Okay, he likes the Beatles. He likes The Four Freshmen, and assorted songs from the 1950’s.

But my dad is passionate about music — 1920’s and 1930’s jazz specifically. Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, etc. During my adolescence, I, for the most part, tried my damnedest not to listen to his music. I find his music much more enjoyable nowadays, but when you’re a gloomy, moody teenager like I was, the last thing you’d want to do is say, “Oh, I like what my folks like.”

Despite having dissimilar tastes, since we were both very passionate about music, we would occasionally lob a volley of a song or two to each other in hopes of making some of sort of connection.

My dad would play the occasional jazz 78 record for me, to mixed results.

I remember playing a pretty solo acoustic guitar song by Yes called “The Clap” for him (No, I have no idea why an effete prog rock band would wish to write a song called “The Clap”).

My dad has an encyclopedic knowledge of the music he cares about. But rock music? I don’t believe he has the equivalent knowledge, or the desire to obtain it — it’s just not his cup of tea.

Over the course of my lifetime, my dad has given me two albums out of the blue. It wasn’t Christmas, it wasn’t a birthday. A couple times during my high school years, my dad just said, “Hey, I picked up this record for you, thought you might like it.”

At the time he gave me these records, I was into The Police, Pink Floyd, Yes, Led Zeppelin, that kinda stuff.

I had no idea what freakshow he was giving me.

The Zapped album was a sampler of Frank Zappa’s Bizarre Records that you could get mailed to you if you sent some money in to his label. I don’t believe it was available in stores. My dad picked this up somewhere used.

This compilation was my first introduction to Captain Beefheart — there are two tracks from Trout Mask Replica. A wonderful pop song by Girls Together Outrageously is on there, which is still among my favorite tunes. There is stuff on this LP that I *still* find a little too odd for my tastes (Lord Buckley, anyone?).

The second album my dad got me was even stranger than the first.

It consisted of 42 tracks that …. well, I’ll let it do the explaining.

If you’re wondering, how on Earth could you fit 42 songs on one piece of vinyl? The answer is, you can’t. Each of these tracks was 15-20 seconds long — they were just snippets of songs. Far out, man.

I frequently would recite the small sample of William S. Burroughs on this record (“Stay out of that time flak! All pilots ride Pan Pipes back to base.”) before I even knew who Burroughs was.

So, I just wanted to say, thanks to my dad for putting me on the road to avant garde stuff.

Wait, Wait, I Was Using That

With the introduction of popular culture, and the mass production and consumption of goods, an unfortunate side effect of all this is that many things that you encounter, and have great love and affection for, may become tragically unavailable.

In some cases, as technology advances and we repeatedly trade in one format of a product (videocassettes, vinyl) for another (supposedly) superior format (DVDs, CDs), a lot of very good stuff never makes the leap and stays in its archaic format forever.

Thankfully, there are many people out there who take matters into their own hands and make copies of beloved movies and music, and in some cases share them with the rest of us.

Still, it’s nice to have a slick, pretty product of something that really moves you in some way.

Here’s a short, incomplete list of stuff I wish was still in print.

The Blade: Shellville High School Yearbook
A great yearbook by Don Novello (aka Father Guido Sarducci) of a high school of sheep. Real sheep.

The Shmenge Brothers – The Last Polka – a pseudo-doc on the famous polka duo from SCTV — starring John Candy and Eugene Levy. Probably the funniest thing I have ever seen on the teevee.

Most music that I have been jonesing for I have actually been able to find through my friend Buford T. Lawless, who somehow downloads music from the Internet through something called “bitemorebits”. Buford says he would love to find a copy of the double-LP UK version of Little Figures, by the early 80’s Athens, GA band The Method Actors. Oh, Buford! You and me, both!

Seven Songs Shaking My World

Continuing the chain, the last link being Johnny Yen

List seven songs you’re into right now … no matter what they are. BUT they must be songs you’re presently enjoying.

The New Pornographers – The Bones Of An Idol (from Twin Cinema)
Any song that Neko Case sings in the New Pornographers invariably is their best. When the instruments kick in overdrive after she sings “but something keeps turning us on” it is head-bobbin’ time.

Lou Reed – Halloween Parade (from New York)
This song from his New York album is achingly beautiful, simple and sad, and filled with lots of affection. One of my favorite songs of his, I’d also match it with any songs of the Velvet Underground. It’s that good.

Pylon – This, That (from Chain)
Man, I am digging Pylon. They were contemporaries of R.E.M. way back when in Athens, GA. Not to be confused with some recent band from the UK also calling themselves Pylon. Great guitar, singing, drumming. This just happens to be the Pylon song that is getting the most airplay these days for me.

Donovan – There Is A Mountain (from a Greatest Hits collection)
I heard this song emanating out of the PA speakers in a store called Hobo, which is basically a cheap version of Home Depot. I had never heard it before, but really, really liked it. As soon as I got home I popped some lyrics I was able to make out into a search engine. Minutes later I was grooving out to it. Fantastic song.

The Everly Brothers – Illinois (from Roots)
I really love the Everly Brothers. I immediately went for this song, ’cause I am sucker for all things Illinois. A really pretty song, with nice piano and their great, inimitable voices.

Leonard Cohen – The Captain (from Various Positions)
I love this song, it’s really bouncy. And I love the lyrics, particularly the lines:

“Complain, complain, that’s all you do
Ever since we lost
If it’s not the Crucifixion
Then it’s the Holocaust”

The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want To Get Over You (from 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1)
Nice synthy song. Like a lot of Stephin Merritt’s songs, the lyrics are really clever. He drops a nice lyrical bomb at the end.

“Or I could make a career of being blue
I could dress in black and read Camus
Smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
like I was seventeen
that would be a scream
But I don’t want to get over you”

Consider yourself tagged if you haven’t done this yet.